The invention relates to a system for collecting data about the display of video commercials.
In the advertising industry, especially in the field of advertising through video commercials, the advertiser using a video commercial for bringing his message to the attention of the public, is anxious to get detailed answers on questions like: how many times was the video commercial displayed, was it displayed in full length, was it displayed with the corresponding sound, etc. In the past collecting data to answer all these questions in a satisfactory way was at least time consuming and unreliable.
Video commercials are displayed e.g. in hundreds of discotheques, cinemas, shopping centers, exhibitions, etc. In general, the management of the establishment (discotheque, cinema etc.) is contractually obliged to display the specific video commercial a predetermined number of times within a predetermined period. Especially when the advertiser has distributed a large number of copies of his video commercial to various establishments it is hardly possible to continuously check each of these places to find out if the management thereof fulfils its contractual obligations. It will be clear that a regular spot check only will provide very superficial data which is hardly suited for further interpretation.
Therefore there exists a need for a data collecting system providing the advertiser with reliable and accurate data suited on the one hand for checking if the management of the discotheque, cinema, etc., keeps his contractual commitments and suited on the other hand for further interpretation by the advertiser.
Furthermore there exists a need for a data collecting system with intermediate data storage facilities to eliminate the necessity, present in prior art systems, to carry out on the spot checks by specifically trained personal.
An object of the invention is therefore to provide a system for collecting reliable and accurate data concerning the showing of video commercials.
A further object of the invention is to provide a data collecting system in which the data, collected during a predetermined time period, is temporarily stored into a memory.
Another object of the invention is to provide a system for collecting data concerning each showing of a specific video commercial.
The invention now provides a system for collecting data, relating to the showing of specific video information registered together with a code signal onto a registration carrier, which carrier is forwarded by the information supplier to one of a number of display stations each comprising at least a video display apparatus for displaying the registered video information and comprising a processor for detecting said code signal and deriving therefrom data about the starting time and the period during which said video information is displayed, said data being stored into a memory, the contents of which memory is at regular intervals read out by the information supplier using a reader station.